State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli got into some hot water with a union leader at the dinner.

Speaking to the crowd, DiNapoli praised Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for parts of the recently passed state budget.

DiNapoli lauded Cuomo even though DiNapoli was one of the fiercest critics of Cuomo’s Tier VI pension plan, a provision which has caused deep anger in the union ranks.

DiNapoli’s remarks brought a face-to-face rebuke from Robert Ajaye, president of Local 2627 of the NYC Electronic Data Processing Personnel Professional Division.

Ajaye cornered DiNapoli at the back of the room and said the comptroller shouldn’t be giving Cuomo any props after Tier VI.

“Don’t come here trying to praise the guy,” Ajaye explained to us later. “I didn’t appreciate that. I could have sat at my table and not said anything. But I couldn’t condone that.”

But DiNapoli came right back during the brief exchange, telling Ajaye that he was first on the front lines in opposing Tier VI, even if the provision couldn’t be defeated.

“Don’t take away from what I did,” DiNapoli told him. HIGGINS RETURNS

Steve Higgins is back.

The 1997 Democratic candidate for borough president is serving as an advisor to Mark Murphy’s congressional bid.

“It’s going to be a great campaign,” Higgins told us while Murphy was pressing some flesh at the Cassidy-Coles Senior Center in New Brighton. “That’s what got me interested. It’s going to be about the failed policies of the Republican Party.”

Higgins, part of the old November Group club that put the spurs to party leadership, is retired from the Department of Education these days, and has been spending time doting on his grandchildren.

But he’s excited to share with Murphy his expertise as one of those few people who has been a candidate as well as a campaign strategist.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

While Higgins worked on campaigns for Eric Vitaliano, Mike McMahon and Vinny Gentile over the years, that 1997 Borough Hall run was his only foray into the arena as a candidate.

He got 30 percent of the vote against Republican Guy Molinari that year.